Steep soggy ice climbing.

The inversion on Saturday gave us one of the best cloud sheets I've seen with just the highest tops above the cloud enjoying warm sunshine. I was skiing on Aonach Mor looking over the cloud to Ben Nevis before skiing down Summit Gully on great snow. Yesterday we lost the temperature inversion and the snow began to refreeze a bit better. Today we had a little fresh snow lying down to 1000m making Ben Nevis look much more wintry.

Paul and I went into Coire na Ciste on Ben Nevis to climb a couple of pitches of nice ice on the way to The Cascade. This was great fun and the ice was very good being firm enough to hold ice screws well but soft enough to take a pick with little fracturing. Another pitch of ice to the right got us to a wee mixed pitch to the start of Expert's Choice. This we climbed on the right to give us another steep bulge just under the cornice. Six pitches of really nice and varied ice climbing was a great result for a day with slowly rising temperature and drizzle. The fresh snow had melted away by the time we finished but it looks slightly drier and cooler tomorrow.